Just 2 cans of soda per week is too much – even if you exercise

Other commenter pointed on actual study, and study actually says that sugar soda induced much much higher rate of disease: hazard ratio of 1.21 for sugar soda vs 1.03 for artificial sweetener soda.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00029...

bobthepanda3• 2 years ago

for context, what is a hazard ratio? I don't see that defined anywhere

tzs• 2 years ago

Note that when deciding if that is something to worry about you need to consider the base rate for the control group.

For example if I was choosing between an activity that killed 100 out of 400 people that did it and one that killed 121 out of 400 I'd pick the first. Picking the second would raise my death probability from 25% to 30.25%. That's over a 5% increase in my death probability.

On the other hand if I was choosing between something that killed 100 out of 100 million and something that killed 121 out of 100 million, I'd probably not really consider the differences in death probabilities. For the first I've got a death probability of 0.0001% and for the second I've got a death probability of 0.000121%. My death probability is only 0.000021% higher in the second activity.

In both cases the hazard ratio is 1.21, but with the second pair of events the probability of encountering the hazard is so low a 21% increase doesn't actually make enough of a difference for me to worry about it.

strict9• 2 years ago

Aspartame is considered the most studied food additive in existence. Decades of study and decades of consumption and yet nothing conclusive found unless ingested in obscenely large amounts.

symlinkk• 2 years ago

Was sugar considered to be heavily studied too?

davidmurdoch• 2 years ago

Yes, but needs an asterisk. Artificial sweeteners, like aspartame, are correlated with increased consumption: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/#s3titl...

tuatoru• 2 years ago

Triggers my asthma when consumed in small amounts, but that's just me. (I only realised I was drinking a sugar-free soft drink when that happened, so I don't think it's psychosomatic.)

bengale• 2 years ago

It feels like anything that isn’t water has some negatives. Diet soda in moderation seems to be basically fine though.

mynameisnoone2• 2 years ago

Not many. They're flavored water. Randos who lay down the tired bullshit Sodas all the same are morons who don't have a clue what they're talking about. The biggest negatives are likely the acidification due to the presence of carbonation interfering vitamin absorption and enamel erosion. A minor issue is the risks from potentially unsafe food colorings still found in many American beverages.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/does-carbonat...

_ea1k• 2 years ago

How well can a study like this control for other factors? For example, could the soda consumption be correlated with other diet choices that trigger the higher rate?

coldtea• 2 years ago

Sometimes even if it's just some correlation, the factors go together. As in, you start just trying to avoid soda, and you tend to eat more healthy too!

I know I eat a lot more with (diet) soda. Somehow makes my stomach fit more :)

FooBarWidget2• 2 years ago

How is this possible? 2 cans is not much. Is it purely because of the sugar? But tons of other things contain sugar, so aren't they just as dangerous?

What about starch and other carbohydrates, like rice, pasta and bread? Inside the body they are converted to glucose. So does that mean that eating two-can-soda-equivalent amount of bread shows the same harmful effects?

This doesn't make sense.

EDIT: living in Netherlands.

orev• 2 years ago

The food industry has gone to great lengths to make people think that the amount of something is all that matters. Ultra processed foods might contain the same nutrients as fresh fruits or vegetables, but they’re clearly not the same.

The physical structure of the item has an enormous impact on how healthy it is, and the rate of absorption is one of the most important factors for sugar related issues. One big shot of sugar all at once is hugely unhealthy, but when released over time (such as when eating a whole unprocessed fruit) isn’t detrimental at all.

NovemberWhiskey9• 2 years ago

The physical structure of the item has an enormous impact on how healthy it is, and the rate of absorption is one of the most important factors for sugar related issues.

OK, but the glycemic index of cola is 60, which is roughly identical to fruits like kiwi, banana, mango and watermelon.

EDIT: love the downvoting for literally providing a factual response here, people.

tqi• 2 years ago

Ultra processed foods might contain the same nutrients as fresh fruits or vegetables, but they’re clearly not the same.

How do they differ?

smcl3• 2 years ago

I don't know where you're from so apologies if I'm making an incorrect assumption, but I will always be puzzled with Americans' with pasta being considered unhealthy. I frequently see pasta/bread being lambasted as unhealthy, and cheese being described as "a good source of protein". Admittedly bread=bad is more prevalent in the "carnivore diet" community (they're bonkers for other reasons, like thinking vegetables should be avoided for being unhealthy) but "pasta=bad, cheese=good" is pretty widespread.

LinuxBender3• 2 years ago

In my opinion the devil's in the details. American pastas are more often than not highly processed components that have lost their nutritional value then have been enriched with low quality multi-vitamins. My understanding is that this is less common in say Italy where it is more likely to find things made from scratch.

dotnet00• 2 years ago

I get lectured by my mom if I tell her I made pasta more often than she thinks is healthy. It's kinda hilarious, particularly since like 70% of it ends up being veggies and tomatoes and yet that's obviously fine.

abtinf• 2 years ago

What is puzzling about this? Do you believe pasta is "healthy"? If so, why?

throwway1203852• 2 years ago

When my wife was pregnant the OB gave her a list of foods to eat during the first trimester nausea and ice cream was listed because it's a good source of protein. So there's definitely some aspect of judging by a single metric. I've busted my butt making semolina pasta before and eaten way less than if I buy a box of barilla because it was a lot more pains-taking.

nonameiguess2• 2 years ago

Frankly, pasta itself is almost certainly fine most of the time, but likely a lot of people's experience of pasta is something like Kraft instant mac and there's a thing about portion sizes, too. My recall of something like basic spaghetti and meatballs as a kid is it tends to be a lot and eat all you want, which ends up being a lot. Whereas if you stick to meat and vegetables, it's very hard to overeat even if enough food is available that you could.

I think some of this ends up being the basis of something like the raw food diet, or the way The Rock has said he eats, which is to never eat anything he actually likes except on cheat days. Enjoyable and cooked foods aren't bad, but if you otherwise can't control yourself, one way to do it is only eat stuff you either don't like or is hard to eat. Even that is largely conflating looking like a model with "health" when they aren't the same thing. When The Rock was a pro wrestler and not an actor, he was noticeably fatter but not to the point that I think it was making any difference in terms of health rather than in terms of his ability to land lead roles in action movies that want you to look like a bodybuilder.

riku_iki4• 2 years ago

So does that mean that eating two-can-soda-equivalent amount of bread shows the same harmful effects? This doesn't make sense.

The major factor is how fast carbs are induced into blood stream. Bread has some fiber and also carbs are more complex, which makes process slower.

NovemberWhiskey9• 2 years ago

Bread has a much higher glycemic index than cola, though. White bread is the "100" on the GI scale, and cola is 60 - that's roughly the "sourdough" range.

nonameiguess2• 2 years ago

Most likely, a person consuming greater than or equal to two cans of sugar-sweetened beverages a day is also consuming other foods that are sugar-sweetened. A retrospective cohort study design like this has no way of preventing that from confounding any conclusions about the impact of just beverages if you're otherwise eating identically.

I think "don't drink soda every day" is about as likely to be good advice for everyone as any diet advice a person gets, but as I ranted about in a very long comment yesterday, this is an inherent limitation of nutrition science. Even what is probably the actual study here that someone linked to says in its conclusion that what they found "supports current recommendations to limit the intake of SSBs even for physically active individuals." They make no claim that they found a concrete causal link and for sure soda will hurt you if it's your only vice.

NovemberWhiskey9• 2 years ago

Most likely, a person consuming greater than or equal to two cans of sugar-sweetened beverages a day is also consuming other foods that are sugar-sweetened. A retrospective cohort study design like this has no way of preventing that from confounding any conclusions about the impact of just beverages if you're otherwise eating identically.

In other words, "don't eat the kind of diet that people who drink two or more cans of soda per week tend to eat"?

If the message here is supposed to be “if you eat sensible portions of healthy foods and lots of vegetables but you also drink two Dr Peppers a week then you’re going to have measurably worse health outcomes” then I sure want to understand that.

goda902• 2 years ago

Something to consider in addition to the total glucose your body eventually gets from a food is the impact on your blood sugar and insulin. How fast they change matters.

Also how those carbohydrates eventually become glucose might matter too. Starch gets broken down into glucose in the mouth, stomach and intestines(with varying speed based on structure). Fructose and sucrose(which is made of fructose and glucose) can't be used directly by the body like glucose. Sucrose gets split into glucose and fructose in the intestines. Fructose gets digested in the liver. Some hypothesize that excess fructose metabolization can cause long term issues.

FooBarWidget2• 2 years ago

Rice and bread have a higher glycemic index (~75) than sugar (65) so what does that mean? I've never heard anybody saying rice is worse than sugar.

ksherlock2• 2 years ago

It could also be that high fructose corn syrup is the issue rather than sugar.

marcosdumay3• 2 years ago

What is on the title is absurd. Somebody linked to the actual paper, that isn't open, but from the abstract:

- 2 cans a week is the amount it will start to be harmful. Effect size is proportional to the extra consumption.

- It's a correlation detected over a large, but very homogenous population. There is space for all kinds of spurious results. That's reason to look for other studies, not to simply dismiss this one.

- What it actually finds is that exercise benefits do not interfere at all with harm from excessive sugar. You can have either combination of them.

- Non-sugared beverages effects (if any) were indistinguishable from noise. (IMO, that one is very surprising.)

usr1106• 2 years ago

I haven't drunk soda for decades. There is nothing I miss.

(Not to boast with my healthy diet: I eat chocolate and cookies far over any recommendation.)

ashes-of-sol• 2 years ago

Every now and then I'll have a craving for a can of coke to go with some pizza, and every time I'm amazed at just how sugary it is, how bad it makes my teeth feel, and the impact it has on my body

RankingMember• 2 years ago

I drink artificially-sweetened sodas, but even then the carbonic acid will slowly eat away at your teeth and give you that "soda teeth" feeling. For that reason I drink them through a straw.

There really is just something about that pizza and soda combination, though- pizza's still great but not quite the same without it for me.

JamesBarney2• 2 years ago

One thing I learned recently is that switching from cookies to ice cream leads to several improvements in health.

Volundr• 2 years ago

Really? I would have assumed the opposite, based on cookies at least having some fiber and such. Do you have more information on this?

xnx• 2 years ago

Refined sugar is the ultimate processed food. All empty calories. No nutrients or fiber. The best amount to consume is "zero". The second best amount to consume is "as little as possible".

cypherg2• 2 years ago

yeah, who needs to eat birthday cake or celebrate life events :eyeroll:

Sugar is absolutely fine in moderation. Everything in moderation including moderation itself

shsbdncudx• 2 years ago

The proble with that is, it’s very hard to moderate. It’s more addictive than alcohol but doesn’t come with the stigma or controls

jagrsw• 2 years ago

How do we know that (re 'ultimate' and 'it's the best')?

ksherlock2• 2 years ago

Pre-print (from last April) available here:

Sugar- or artificially-sweetened beverage consumption, physical activity, and risk of cardiovascular disease in US adults

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10168425/

cypherg2• 2 years ago

do not get health advice from nypost.com lol

RivieraKid• 2 years ago

I've been eating quite a lot of sugar all my life and in general I eat when I'm hungry until I'm not hungry. But my BMI is 18.5 and fat 11% (per my scale, probably inaccurate). How could this be possible? Maybe small stomach?

JamesBarney2• 2 years ago

Genes. It's most likely not the stomach but the hypothalamus. It basically controls hunger and some people's hypothalamus is really good at defending against weight gain, and other aren't.

txdv• 2 years ago

My auntie could eat a lot and was always super thin. Then she turned 50 and her metabolism stopped keeping up and gained a lot of weight.

Saw the same happening with someone turning 25, super thin athletic body into gut over the course of 2 years, diet was the same for 5 years.

throw0101d• 2 years ago

One 355 mL (12 fl. oz.) can of Coke has 39g of sugar:

* https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/coca-cola/products/or...

Daily recommended maximum sugar intake is 36g (9 teaspoons) for men and 25g (6 teaspoons) for women:

* https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...

mynameisnoone2• 2 years ago

Also, orange juice, while not laden with HFCS, has even more calories than Coke. (Exception: Tropicana waters down their re-flavored, rehydrated, old, deoxygenated concentrate to the same sugar levels as soda.) Fruit juices are essentially sugar so many of them are also a hard pass.

paulpauper• 2 years ago

It's basic CICO. It can be excess of anything. Fruit, even.

drewcoo• 2 years ago

I heard that force-feeding rats 1000x more preachy dietary "facts" than expected among humans led to cancer.

Just 2 cans of soda per week is too much – even if you exercise

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